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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, currants, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Loaf Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the sifted flour, baking soda mixture, ground cinnamon, and grated nutmeg until combined.

  4. Fold in the currants and raisins.

Bake

  1. Divide the batter into three buttered loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together359 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Wheat flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture and richness, binding the batter together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to lift it, helping the loaves rise.
Currants
Add tart, chewy bursts of fruit that contrast with the sweet batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before adding it. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed in the batter to react and rise evenly. Dissolving it in a little hot water first helps it spread through the batter, so the loaves rise without pockets of soda or bitter patches.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, wheat, flour, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, wheat, flour, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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